1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of printing and in particular, to systems and methods to enhance the printing of online content by printers through techniques that facilitate optimal usage of printer capabilities.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer printers, which are ubiquitous in most modern organizations, permit the quick printing of stored documents. Designers of modern printers have focused relentlessly on improving printer speed, efficiency, color accuracy, and cost resulting in virtually universal adoption of printers. Thus, even many low cost printers are capable of printing data at relatively high resolutions. For example, many printers are capable of printing at resolutions of 600 dots per inch (“dpi”) or at even higher resolutions.
However, for a variety of reasons, many applications do not make optimal use of printer capability. For example, Internet-based map services such as Google™ Maps (maps.google.com) or Yahoo™ Maps (maps.yahoo.com) allow users to rapidly generate and view a map of almost any location in the world at a variety of scales while overlaying a variety of data layers. The resulting maps are of adequate quality for viewing on a computer monitor. On a computer monitor, subject to the limits of map source data users can zoom in on features of interest, so the limited resolution (typically 72 dots per inch) of the monitor does not significantly impede map usability. However, when the map is printed the hard copy produced by the printer is the same resolution as monitor data and is far below the 600 dpi that a typical printer can produce, and far below what users typically expect from printed output. Consequently, printed copies of online maps are of typically of poor quality relative to normal paper maps. Because of the low resolution of the printed online map, small fonts can be difficult to read and geographic detail is difficult to resolve.
Although map data is available at high resolution, map servers typically use a Vector Markup Language (“VML”) or other such vector description to store map data. VML is typically not supported by web browsers. Therefore, map servers typically service user map requests by generating map data with a non-VML raster-based format and at a lower resolution supported by a large number of browsers and monitor screens. Further, serving map data at lower resolution requires lower network bandwidth allowing servers to service a greater number of user requests. Moreover, only a fraction of map request users may want to print the maps, so serving high resolution maps may not be the best use of resources. In addition, map services may want to limit release of valuable vector map data, which may be susceptible to theft, if delivered in vector format to users.
In general, because of the differences between monitor and printer capabilities, information security concerns, network bandwidth issues, and/or browser capabilities, online services may not be making use of printer resources in an optimal manner. Therefore, there is a need for systems and methods to allow online services to optimally use printer capabilities in a manner, which: addresses information security concerns of the service providers; has limited impact on network bandwidth; and permits the service provider to continue supporting a variety of browsers.